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Polymeric systems

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Last Updated: Wednesday, 21 August 2013 11:41

Coarse-graining has been of fundamental importance in the field of polymer modeling. In order to study the large size of polymer chains and the associated slow relaxation processes, a reduction of the degrees of freedom has proven absolutely necessary. Although the Martini model has been designed for biomolecular applications, there is no reason why the same philosophy could not be extended to soft matter in general. Indeed there is a growing number of basic polymer systems for which Martini parameters have been derived, currently including polyethyleneglycol (PEG) [1,11], polystyrene [2,9], triblock copolymers [3,10], polyester coatings [4], polymer nanofibres [5], dendrimers [6], and amphipols [8].

One of the advantages of the broad scope of Martini is the ability to easily combine different systems. In the context of polymers, this is demonstrated by studies of dendrimers and copolymers interacting with lipid membranes [6,10], and simulations of pegylated lipids [7]. We expect many more of these Martini hybrid simulations in the near future ...